


like regular people

by outranks



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Mild Fluff, Winter, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 17:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outranks/pseuds/outranks
Summary: All the money in the world couldn’t buy John the sense to build a house that wouldn’t be impossible to heat six months out of the year.





	like regular people

**Author's Note:**

> (beta'd by [CrownBeed](http://crownbeed.tumblr.com/) ♥)

There aren’t enough blankets in Montana to keep John warm once winter hits and his beautifully designed house, with its high vaulted ceilings, turns into a frigid ice box. And John knows this because he bought every blanket he could find, just to wrap himself up in them, and he’s _still_ cold. Still freezing down to his bones. All the money in the world couldn’t buy him the sense to build a house that wouldn’t be impossible to heat six months out of the year.

He's not like Jacob who seems to thrive no matter the weather. Who doesn’t understand that _cold_ is bad. Or Joseph who has God’s favor and is only ever mildly touched by the winter chill.

At least the new Faith is shivering just as hard as he is. 

That’s a small comfort.

She drops down onto the sofa beside him, curling into the smallest space she can make, just to preserve some warmth.

“Here,” John says, lifting up a corner of his top most blanket so she can wrap it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she says between chattering teeth. “Why isn’t your house heated?”

“It _is._ ” John just hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to keep it warm in the winter and now he’s not sure what to do about it except maybe set the whole thing on fire. Which is starting to sound like a better and better idea with each passing day. The _second_ that he can see his own breath when he’s indoors, the house is going up in flames.

Faith looks at him and then to the fireplace that is slowly starting to warm the room, and then back to him. “Oh,” she says, pulling the blanket just a little tighter.

Jacob steps through the front door, brushing snow off his jacket so it can all melt into little puddles on the floor instead. “You two going to come outside and help me put up the lights or are you going to sit there all day.”

Faith jerks forward like she wants to help but John only buries himself further inside his blanket cocoon. “You’re doing fine on your own,” he says. There’s only one power on Earth that’ll get John outside and _he’s_ not home yet. So John’s not moving a single fucking inch.

“Is that a no?” Jacob asks, folding his arms over his chest. “I thought your whole thing was to say _yes_.”

John curls his legs up onto the sofa and tries to clench his teeth against another wave of shivering. It is so _fucking cold_ in this shithole state they’ve chosen to build their lives. “Why yes, Jacob, I’d love to go outside with you and freeze my balls off.” 

Jacob heaves an over dramatic sigh, but he walks over to the fireplace, tracking wet footprints of melted and melting snow, and throws another log onto the fire. “Joseph will be disappointed when he gets here.”

“Well Joseph can—“ John doesn’t bite his tongue to keep from finishing what he was going to say only because he’s shivering so hard that he’s afraid of biting it _off_. And he can’t say it anyway, even if he wanted to. He loves Joseph _so much_.

Jacob huffs a soft laugh, reaching out to adjust the blanket around John and Faith’s shoulders. “This place should start to warm up soon,” he says. “I’ll finish with the lights; don’t worry about it.” 

Which John wasn’t planning to anyway, but it’s nice to know that now he has permission. “Thanks,” he mutters, already starting to feel a little less frozen, though he would prefer it if Jacob would stay inside too, instead of going back out. 

Every time he opens the door he lets more cold air in.

Of course that’s when the front door opens, admitting another gust of cold air and flurries of snow, along with Joseph who is carrying two large boxes. One stacked on top of the other, covering his upper half completely, as he stumbles a little, kicking the door closed behind him. 

“What is this?” Jacob rushes over, taking one of the boxes and following Joseph back over to the sofa where they set everything down.

“Gifts,” Joseph says, moving to the fireplace to warm his hands. “From our flock.”

Faith sits forward as much as the blanket will allow. “I thought you told everyone not to give you anything.”

Joseph sighs. “I did, but it seems they only took that as a _suggestion_.” he pushes his glasses up with one hand to rub at his eyes with the other. “There’s more in the car…”

“I’ll get ‘em,” Jacob says.

“Thank you.” Joseph smiles at Jacob then turns his attention to John and Faith bundled up on the sofa. “Are the two of you alright? If I’d known… the church has a heater I could have brought with me,” he says, a slight downturn to his mouth. “It might be too late to go back now.”

“I’m fine,” Faith says, a little too soft. It’s clear that she’s still trying to figure out her place with them; where she best fits. It’s also clear from the way she’s huddled into herself, with her feet up on the sofa and her arms tucked between her chest and her thighs, that she’s freezing. 

Which is fine for her to say, but John is not only the baby brother, he’s also the one who is going to freeze to death in fucking _Montana_ because of his stupid, useless house. “Joseph, I’m dying,” he says pitifully, though he is a little warmer now, possibly due to Jacob adding another log to the fire, but more likely it’s the frostbite setting in. “ _Joseph_.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Joseph says, clearly fighting to keep his face neutral, though John can see the corner of his mouth twitching up. “Try to stay alive while I’m gone.” With a gentle pat to John’s arm he turns and heads for the kitchen, taking only a short detour to leave his coat on the rack by the front door like a proper human, unlike Jacob who can’t ever be bothered. 

“He’s… kind to you,” Faith says, shifting a little to get further under the blanket so she can pull it around her legs. 

John frowns, glancing at her, and shrugs off the top most blanket so that she can have the entire thing without having to share. “He’s my brother, of course he is.”

“No, I mean—” Faith bites her lip and sighs. “I’ve been used to seeing him as the Father, but he’s _different_ here.”

Not always, but John doesn’t say that. Sometimes when he looks at Joseph all he can see is the Father, with all that the title entails. But whenever he needs his _brother_ , whenever he just needs _Joseph_ , he can find him too. “I guess so,” he says instead. She’ll figure it out eventually, if she stays long enough. 

They all have a role to play, but they’re still going to be a family.

And he thinks this Faith will be the last one, so she’ll have time to learn. She is so much stronger than the others; smarter and more cunning. 

The front door swings open with a kick of Jacob’s boot and he stomps in, tracking more snow and wet slush onto John’s floors and letting in _yet another_ frigid gust of air. 

“At least take your boots off,” John snaps, sinking further into his cocoon.

Jacob uses his heel to close the door again. “Hold on,” he says, like he’s not already tracking wet footprints all the way to the sofa where he drops the boxes beside the table. And when he does pull his boots off he just tosses them behind him, toward the door, because he doesn’t care about how much John had to pay for the hardwood flooring. “Shit, it’s cold out there.”

“And you wanted me to go out there with you.”

“Might have done you some good.”

John snorts and rolls his eyes. “Not if I freeze to death.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Then why were you trying to get me outside?”

Jacob exhales heavily, sitting down on the floor beside the boxes. “It wasn’t as bad an hour ago,” he says.

“I’m not like you, Jacob, I need warmth to survive.”

“No fighting,” Joseph calls from the kitchen before he returns to the living room with a tray of steaming mugs. He hands the first one to Faith and John can see the little marshmallows dotting the top of the cocoa.

“Thank you,” she says, pressing her hands around the ceramic. 

Joseph reaches out to touch her face, just a quick brush of fingers over her cheek. “It is my job as your brother,” he says, then hands over a mug to John and Jacob, taking the last for himself and setting the tray on the table.

John tries to curl his entire body around the hot cocoa, breathing in the steam like he can leech every last trace of heat from it. “Thank you, Joseph,” he mumbles, not quite drowning out Jacob’s grunt of appreciation. “Jacob says thank you, too.”

Jacob grunts louder, just to be obnoxious.

“You’re welcome, both of you,” Joseph says, sitting in the floor beside Jacob. “We can sort through these gifts and—” he frowns, looking around and patting his pockets. “I don’t suppose you grabbed a stack of envelopes from the car, did you?” he asks Jacob.

“No,” Jacob says, “why?”

“They’re for the thank you cards we’re going to send to everyone who gave us a gift,” he says. “I must have left them at the church…”

John tries to hide a groan in his cocoa, but he can see the slight amusement on Joseph’s face and knows that he’s been caught. “We told them not to give us anything, why do we have to thank them for it?”

“They’re our flock,” Joseph says, “we have to set a good example.”

Faith shifts, careful not to spill her cocoa. “I don’t mind.”

“It could be worse.” Jacob pulls the lid off the first box, revealing several stacks of some kind of bread lumps, that John would rather not have in his home. “How much fruitcake did we get?” he asks, sounding almost _alarmed_ , like any amount of fruitcake is too many. 

Joseph makes a face, like he’s trying to look _grateful_ , but falling a bit short now that he’s confronted with a fucking mountain of lumpy bread dotted with unidentifiable green and red bits. “It’s a lot,” he says finally. 

Jacob takes a loud slurp of his cocoa and carefully places the lid back on the box, sliding it out of the way. “I can’t give that to my wolves,” he says, opening the next box. 

Well it’s not more fruitcake.

“Is that glitter?” Faith asks.

Joseph sets his mug down beside him and reaches into the box to pull out a festive sweater, decorated in an _obscene_ amount of glitter and sequins. “These were made for us,” he says, handing the first one over to Faith who leans over to place her mug on top of the tray on the table so that she can take the sweater from him. 

“Oh,” she says, shaking off some of the excess glitter and uncurling her legs to lay the sweater over her lap. It has her name written in big, sequined, block letters across the front, with white flowers in a pattern along the top and bottom. “I like it.”

John looks to Jacob who is pulling his own sweater over his head in a cloud of glitter that falls off of it with every movement, and when it’s finally all the way on there’s even more in his hair and beard. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s soft,” Jacob shrugs. His name is written on it, the same as Faith’s, but instead of flowers there are _dogs._

“John,” Joseph says, holding out another one. 

Just like the others it covers everything in glitter. But it _is_ soft. Almost softer than anything else he owns, and he rubs the fabric between his fingers. He’s tempted to rub it against his face, more tempted to put the damn thing on, but Jacob is _grinning_ at him like he knows that sooner or later all of them will be wearing matching sweaters. He narrows his eyes, staring at his brother as he picks it up and sets next to him on the sofa, postponing the inevitable. 

Even if it is soft and warm and would probably be nice to wear when he’s still so cold.

“It’s not… bad,” he says.

Joseph hums agreement, carefully folding his own sweater and placing it on the overturned box lid on the floor. So it won’t get _dirty_ , even though John’s house is never going to be clean of glitter again. He pulls a set of carved wooden figures out of the box and hands them over to Jacob then picks up a bundle of fabric that looks a lot like matching scarves to go with their sweaters. “I knew I’d seen these,” he murmurs, passing them out to everyone else.

It’s just as soft and John eagerly wraps it around his neck. “How much more is there?”

“Leave if you want,” Jacob says, lining the wooden figures in a row on the table. They look little dogs with antlers, though it’s hard to tell. 

“I can bring your gifts to you later, if you’d like,” Joseph adds.

John makes a sound of annoyance, just to be clear where he stands on the issue, but hunkers further down into his blankets and his spot on the sofa. The room is cold and the gifts are strange, and his bedroom will be warmer, but his _family_ is here. Together. They’ve already spent too long apart for him to leave them when he doesn’t have to. When there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. “I’ll stay,” he says, and decides to put the damn sweater on.

**Author's Note:**

> gonna try to write as much fluff as possible this month (ﾉ･ｪ･)ﾉ | hmu on [tumblr](https://outranks.tumblr.com/) before it implodes


End file.
